This section provides background information related to the present disclosure and is not necessarily prior art.
Instruments and tools are used during surgical procedures for various purposes, including providing access to a surgical site, inserting or providing materials to the surgical site, and attaching or otherwise assembling certain components at the surgical site. In some situations, it may be necessary or desirable to insert the surgical instrument into small or constrained space, or enter the surgical site from a predetermined direction, or access a predetermined location in the surgical site, or provide a portion of the surgical instrument with various manners of movement (e.g., translation, rotation, angulation, etc.) at the surgical site. For example, during some surgical procedures it may be desirable to access or otherwise approach the surgical site from a lateral direction in order to avoid a portion of the anatomy or to enter another portion of the anatomy.
While known surgical instruments have proven to be acceptable for their intended purposes, a continuous need for improvement in the relevant art remains. In this regard, it would be desirable to provide a surgical instrument that allows, or otherwise makes it easier, for a surgeon to access the surgical site and/or use and manipulate the surgical instrument at the surgical site.